334.3. EBB to Uvedale Price
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 2.
Hope End.
March 20th 1829.
My dear Sir,
I should have replied more immediately to your letter, both because I was anxious to notice some parts of it, & because there is an hiatus in your manuscript of one sheet which I wanted to apply to you to fill up. But hearing of your accident which made me very concerned, & feeling unwilling to annoy you with my letters or give you the trouble of looking among your papers for the stray sheet, I waited till Mrs Price was kind enough to say how you were; I have now waited on, a few days, that I may send, at the same time, the remarks I venture to make on the first part of the m∙s. The sheets are all right as they are numbered: but between page 60 & page 61 the subject breaks off most unfortunately, just as you are going to resolve
fiet / asper / modo / avis / modo / saxum / et cum / volet / arbor /
from an enneameter back again to an hexameter—so that the unhappy line is left to drag its slow length along, till you are pleased to restore its activity. Tho’ I only send my remarks on the first part of the ms, which are quite sufficient for one letter; I have read the whole, not once but repeatedly. I must not praise myself by saying with how much delight & interest; but you may allow me to observe that the Lagoda Proppos, who aspired to extract sunbeams out of cucumbers, should have studied Mr Price’s manner of treating these “dry & minute” subjects. It is quite peculiar to Mr Price: no one would have thought of treating a philological question in such a spirit of poetical enthusiasm; of involving a dark body in such a luminous atmosphere,
Ει μη μονος γἐπεινος
Before I go on to my remarks, I must observe, in my own defence, that tho’ I did not immediately attribute the words “on that account if on no other” to a slip of the pen, the possibility certainly never entered my mind either of your being “ignorant of what every body knows, that there are a number of compound words of the same character with those you mentioned, but in which the first syllable is short”,—or of your meaning to contend against your fundamental principles that a “marked emphasis should be given to short syllables.” Had I entertained such a suspicion, I must indeed have been “ignorant of what every body knows.” I plead guilty to expressing myself badly; which I must necessarily have done, for I only intended to doubt whether your note, as it stood, did not involve something more than you would like to sanction, & whether it might not, by an adversary, be turned against your fundamental principles. I was led to doubt this not entirely by the words on that account, tho’ you contend that, without them, the sense would be clear & not liable to objection– It appeared to me that the whole spirit of that note, however ingenious, tended to trust the roof of your edifice to Dresden china rafters—to pay a point of sentiment too much honor by using it as an argument. You call us most preposterous in giving the whole length & strip to the second syllable of such words as infelice because we destroy the quantity by doing so– I would not add another because—that our attention is thus directed to the idea of happiness. The expressive strip on the privative is a pleasing coincidence with the preservation of the quantity; but is no more a reason for preserving the quantity in ἀφςητως than it would be for breaking the quantity in ἀθεμιςσ. This is what struck me at the time; & I have here tried to put down my first impression in a rather clearer manner, than, in my last letter, I could have done. I might say a great deal about your letter, for I received from it the pleasure which I know your kindness desired me to receive. Your comment on the simile Ως σόθὐηαι &c will be always connected in my mind with the simile itself: as the tones of a pean haunt us thro’ the poetry of Shakespeare. But it will perhaps be better to go at once to the remarks—for which I appreciate your indulgence. I spare you as far as possible the effects of my cacoëthes. On page 5, you observe that “when a word of more than two syllables but—an indispensable condition—with a short final, follows the trochee which commences the hexameter, we make the first syllable short—that, on the other hand, where such words end on a long syllable, we are very apt to transfer the length of it to the first, & to block up the poor trochee, as ᾶςτον ἐποι χεσθαι—ære rénidescit tellus.” The condition is very commonly exacted i.e. we are ‘very apt’ to exact it, but there seem to be many examples that deny its being indispensable. I will put down a few—without paying any regard to contexts–
Turba Menandreæ fuerat nec Thaïdos olim. Propertius lib 2 Eleg. 5.
Desit ǒdoriferis ordo mihi lancibus: ad init. Lib 2. Eleg xii
Fortis lapydiæ miles: testis quoque fallax. Tibullus. lib 4 Carm 1
in all of which we are graciously pleased to abstain from “transferring the length of the final syllable to the first,” tho’ we, by no means leave it in its proper place. In the two last lines, as you will observe, the “poor trochee” so far from appealing to your compassion by being “blocked up”, has considerably more freedom than may be tolerated by your suprema lex. Note page 6. “As an advocate for our system why we lay our acute where the Greeks did not lay theirs, & why we omit laying it where they did lay theirs”—you conceive this to be the only answer which could be made—“that the Romans laid their acute on the first of all dissyllables, that we lay ours upon it; & that the Greeks—as an especial favour—have been admitted ad cundim.” An advocate of the system would certainly rather make any defence than the one laid down for him; & if hard pressed, as he must be by such a question—might possibly refer to the supposed derivation of the Roman accent from the Æolic, & say “Damus et vicissim—the Greeks only receive from our pronunciation of Latin, what the Latins received originally from the Greeks”. I am rather surprised that no allusion should be made to the opinion of Æolic extraction of the Roman accent—particularly as it seems to lie in the way of this note.
Page 13. It is stated that “three dissyllablic spondees, in succession, are not to be found in any poet later than Ennius—that they have no less monotony than true trochees, & of a heavier kind—that they offend grievously against rhythm”. In observing that three dissyllabic spondees in succession are not to be found in any poet later than Ennius, you must mean not three successive spondees distinct per se, but three successive spondees which remain distinct thro’ a general scanning of the verse. The three successive spondees distinct per se, & following the monosyllable at the beginning of the hexameter, as
Hinc flammis illinc ventis numoreque mixto. Lucretius
Hoc mersam cæno Romam somnoque jacentem. Petronius De Bello Civile.
are not uncommon, especially in Lucretius. But your observations apply with as much force to these examples, as they could do to consecutive spondees that retain their distinctness thro’ a general scanning of the verse. The heavy monotony you are so severe upon, & which you justly attribute to the falling of the ictus on the same syllable, exists to a similar extent in the examples, & is to be attributed to a similar cause: the ictus being as unvaried in
Hoc mersam cæno Romam somnoque jacentem
as it would have been had Petronius written
Mersam cæno Romam–
If this be just, it of course follows that you have passed a vote of censure on all verses constructed like the examples. I cannot accede to the vote of censure: & tho’ I agree at once that the consecutive dissyllablic spondees have no less monotony than trochees in a like situation, & that their monotony is of a heavier kind, yet I am inclined to think them considerably more impressive. Tho’ the practice be allowed to offend grievously against harmonious rhythm, I am inclined to think that it does not always offend against expressive rhythm: and expression is the reasoning of Harmony. Virgil has not disdained to admit the structure into his rhythmetical aristocracy.
Monstrum horrendum informe ingens cui lumen ademptiom, and Milton seems to have done his best to preserve a similar dignified & heavy spondaic monotony in a celebrated line—
Him first; Him last; Him midst; & without end:
Here Milton makes use of the only means he could make use of to procure three consecutive spondees. He makes use of monosyllables. But by dividing, with a pause, each spondee so constructed, he gives each a dissyllabic character; &, what is remarkable, lets fall the emphasis on the last syllable, as uniformly as the ictus occurs in my Latin examples.
Hīm fīrst. Hīm lāst. Hīm mīdst–
It is the most spondaic line I know of in English.
Page 13. You give examples of our three successive pseudo trochees at the end of a verse. As κοίλας έπι τήας éo mágis ácrem—móta ánus úrna: but seem to doubt whether instances of such endings occur in Virgil. I suppose this to be an inadvertency, & that you intended to say that you had not observed in Virgil such an ending as three unelided dissyllables—as ηοιλας επι τηας. Such an ending is certainly very rare—but there is one in the tenth book of the Æneid.
Omnes innocuæ—sed non púppis túa Tárcho.
with regard to endings composed of three pseudo trochees—one elided—forming a real adonic, as “mota anus urna,” you must of course be acquainted with many more than I know of, in Virgil—in the Georgics, as “Ergo age terrœ”—in the Bucolics, as “atque ego Daphnim.”
Page 16. You desire me to mention “slips”, so I may as well observe that you have included in your five-trochee division, a line of six pseudo trochees. In your eight-trochee division you have placed a line of only six trochees; for I cannon reckon máluit which seems both by quantity & accent to be quite guiltless of trochaic pretensions. I dont see why the innocent dactyl should suffer in the skirmish,—or why you should visit it with such opprobrium, unless indeed on account of the very questionable company you find it in. I may be permitted to take its part, & deprecate your malice prepense.
Have you not enemies plus satis?—
Page 16. I hope not to be thought very much out of order, but I must stop here, where mention is made of the sapphie structure, to write my full & free abjuration of those heresies respecting it, which you accused me of “hankering after” at Foxley. It is quite true that, not only then, but till very lately, I had a most strange delight in
Mīt grĭndĕr sēe thy cōat hăs gŏt ă hōle ĭ’nt.
Mērcŭrĭ hām tĕ dōcĭlĭs măgīstrŏ–
Tho’ for nām tĕ I might have read nāmby, to the same tune, & with much appropriateness. The fact was “the tune had not grown to my ear,” but my ear to the tune—ausiculam demisi—for, in speaking of ‘the system,’ a sin against Horace comes in pas sympathie, or rather par attraction. I was satisfied that you were right in your cadence, but I thought it heavy & uniform, not perceiving that the old cadence was jigging & uniform. My ear was to follow my nacon; so I accustomed it as much as I could, perforce, to the legitimate tune,—& now, upon going back to the other, on trial, I am quite sure that not even a perforce could keep me there.
Page 19. “This false quantity,” you observe, (speaking of our mode of pronouncing the antivacchius,) sometimes does little injury to the “rhythm, the accent & ictus coinciding; just great injury where they do not coincide.” The non coincidence of accent & ictus seems to me as impoossible in the anti vacchius, as you have shown it to me in the vacchius—the last syllable being, in all situations, the second of a dactyl, & the ictus metricus being consequently where the accent is—on the second syllable. I really do not understand how the person of the anti vacchius can be said to be ill used in the first trisyllable of your quotation
Magnum reginæ sed enim miseratus amorem
It hangs out the colours of a molossus, & meets with the common fate of molossi, as described in page 20 i.e. a conversion into an amphibrach.
Page 29. “Chaucer was quite right in saying nulla Venús—& tho’ “wrong in Mem Venús, yet the amphimacer is readily & easily made a dactyl, by not pressing on the accented syllable; whereas one amphibrach Mĕm Venŭs is fundamentally wrong.” I have a great respect for Chaucer, but doubt very much his immaculateness on this point. I understood till now that you considered the pronunciation of dissyllables in his time as spondaic, & have surely heard you express an opinion to such an effect. The passage in question was probably written antecedently to the formation of that opinion, or subsequently to changing it; for it is here clear that Venús is considered to have been iambired by Chaucer. One remark may be hazarded; that, however, he may have read,
Fairest of fair, o Ladye mine Vĕnūs.
he certainly wrote
And Vēnŭs laugheth upon every night.
I have marked the word as a trochee or as a spondee—an iambus it cannot be—:& supposing it to be either trochee or spondee Chaucer’s preservation of quantity can have but a brittle reputation. If the word be a spondee. I see no possible reason for supposing that he pronounced Nulla Venus right: & assuredly his Mēm Vĕnŭs would have a forlorn hope of escaping the heavy-loading of a molossus—which the goddess might hardly like. If, on the other hand, the word be a trochee, Chaucer is not even consistent in error; & the most metrical offender of our times may say to him, ne sis mihi sutor.
This seems to me rather more than enough for one letter; & you cannot be expected to disagree with me on such a point. You desire me to speak freely; & therefore I will not apologise for having spoken freely—tho’ I have done so in utter defiance of those βαι ἀει δ'ὑμτουμετα, αδσμριδ, perhaps sensibly, by Ajax to Leomessa. They must indeed be very sensible, if they make up in wisdom what they want in gallantry. Now many of my pleasures, dear Sir, I owe to you directly or indirectly: Mr James Commeline who professes himself to be “tenaic” as ever, has been kind enough to send me the correspondence he had with you on the subject of accent. I am giving it great attention; but find myself too late in the sheet & the evening to begin to speak of it now.
Believe me
Your grateful
E. B. Barrett.
Publication: None traced.
Source: Author’s draft at Armstrong Browning Library.
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